


the calm before

by deadlybride



Series: fic for climate crisis [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Established Relationship, Gadreel Possessing Sam Winchester, Human Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Episode: s09e03 I'm No Angel, Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:42:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29583933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlybride/pseuds/deadlybride
Summary: Sam and Dean bring Castiel home.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Series: fic for climate crisis [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2173491
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	the calm before

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cestlestialbeings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cestlestialbeings/gifts).



> This fic was written for climate relief in Texas. Personalized fics are available on request; see [this post on my tumblr](https://zmediaoutlet.tumblr.com/post/629171809812643840/fic-for-fire-relief) for more info.

Cas is different. It’s not just the clothes, although that was such a surprise that Sam almost didn’t recognize him when they finally found him, knocked out in that reaper’s apartment. That was a surprise, too—when Sam had thought Castiel was dead—and Dean all panicked, clutching at his face, when Sam woke up (from being knocked out? it must have been a bad fight)—but there was Cas, blinking and groaning and sore and saying, “I thought—I didn’t think you'd—”

Uncertain, unbalanced. Weak. Sam thinks it and hates himself for thinking it, but it’s true. The Cas they’ve known was a powerhouse, not just in his grace but in his certitude. No matter what insane plan, no matter how dangerous or frightening, Cas just stepped into it. It was like bravery except that Sam wasn’t sure that Cas knew what fear really was. Dean hugs him close and Cas clutches at Dean’s sides, at his jacket; when Sam tugs him in Cas’s fingers dig into his shirt and they feel… soft. Human. Human—well, that’s the problem.

“Man, you’ve gotta listen to me,” Dean says, close. His hand on Cas’s shoulder, his face this tangle. Sam’s been on the other side of it before and he wonders if Cas is feeling the same heart-crumpling slam of guilt. “What were you thinking?” Cas’s head ducks and Sam thinks, again, _wrong_. It feels so strange. Dean glances at Sam and his voice gets lighter. “And what are you doing, huh? Going home with strange girls. Me and Sam are chopped liver now, or something?”

“You’re not chopped liver,” Cas says, quiet. Sorry. “I was just—cold. And very hungry. April seemed kind.”

“They always do,” Dean says, and Sam huffs but gets his hand around the back of Cas’s neck, reassuring. Cas looks up at him and seems wrecked. Like before, when Heaven had cut him off and his grace was thinning, spooling away—except, Sam thinks, that’s how it’s going to be, now. Castiel, their angel, not an angel anymore. Something snakes through his stomach, thinking it, but he can’t quite pin it down. Dean’s grabbing Cas back, though, hugging him close and putting a hand in his hair and looking so relieved Sam almost looks away, and the snaking feeling disappears, in favor of getting Cas close and warm, and safe, and theirs. Theirs, again. Maybe for the first time.

He sleeps in the backseat, on the drive home. Dean keeps checking the rearview. “He’s fine,” Sam says, and Dean says, fast, “I know,” and then, slower, “I know, I just…”

Sam twists around. Cas is tucked in behind Dean’s seat, Sam’s jacket pulled up over his chest, passed out hard despite the thin morning light. Sam’s seen him sleep only once before and it keeps pinging him, strange. “It feels wrong,” he says, quiet. “Like it’s not him.”

Dean looks at him sideways and then turns back to the road. “It’s him,” he says, firm. “Has to be. Who else would be dumb enough to trust a reaper?” Sam snorts, flicks Dean’s arm. Gets a half-smile that appears and disappears so fast Sam might’ve imagined it, and then Dean rubs his mouth with the back of two knuckles, glancing up in the rearview again. “I know what you mean. Like—what is he, if he’s not…”

Sam shakes his head. Hard to say. What would they be, if they weren’t hunters? Not much, Sam thinks, but they’d have each other at least. They always have. “We’ll figure it out,” he says, finally, and Dean nods, and keeps his eyes on the road, and Sam settles in to his side of the seat and wonders how.

Night again, by the time they hit Kansas. Castiel wakes up an hour from the bunker and croaks out, small, “I need food,” and Dean immediately signals for the nearest exit and they hit a drive-through and then Sam watches Cas eat, in the backseat: messy, ravenous. Like when he was cursed by Famine except, of course, it’s not anything more supernatural than that particular kind of all-day gnawing hunger. He sucks his fingers eating the fries, eyes closing in relief at grease, salt, protein. Meaty, human. Sort of disgusting but Sam offers him more fries over the backseat and Cas is so grateful that it’s sort of endearing, too.

Home. Cas’s legs are wobbly, getting out of the backseat. “Whoa,” Dean says, steadying his arm. “Too much excitement after being in a coma all day?”

“My body is unreliable,” Cas says, looking down, and he sounds uncertain enough about it that Dean’s face changes, soft where Cas can’t see. “I’m not used to this.”

“Of course not, Cas,” Sam says. He smiles when Cas looks at him, trying to be encouraging. “It’s a lot. I can’t really say we understand but—you’re just going to need some time. Everything’s going to feel weird for a while.”

Cas’s mouth tilts. “I must say, it’s amazing how much time humans waste with urination,” he says, and Dean laughs, says, “Okay, partner, let’s go,” and Sam follows them out of the garage, smiling too, ignoring the sensation in his stomach that keeps saying _no_. It’ll go away. It’s time for them to be here for their friend.

Cas asks to shower, before anything else. “I didn’t realize people could get so itchy,” he says, and Sam rolls his eyes and sets him up with soap, a towel, points out the shampoo and conditioner. He finds Dean going through the drawers in a bedroom they haven’t used, frowning. His eyes look more tired than they should, even after two long days of driving. Sam says, “Hey,” and isn’t expecting Dean to jump like Sam’s someone he doesn’t expect to see.

“Ought to put a bell on you,” Dean says, dragging a hand over his face. He’s got a pile—boxers, socks, thin white undershirt. He leans his palms on the dresser and blows out air, slow. “God. I thought he was—”

Sam remembers. Castiel’s still face, the blood. He thought he’d seen the knife go in but—well, that was wrong, obviously. Thank god. “He’s okay,” Sam says. “Or, I don’t know. He’ll be okay. He’s human, right? We’re resilient.”

Dean lets out a low, fake _hah_. “Right,” he says, and Sam can’t hold back anymore—he steps closer, and slides his hand along the low of Dean’s back. Dean’s head dips, his eyes falling shut. “Sammy,” he says, almost like warning, but Sam doesn’t want to wait—doesn’t know why they’ve been waiting.

“We’re going to be okay, too,” Sam says. He pulls at Dean’s hip and there’s resistance, for a second, but Dean stands up, turns, slides an arm around Sam’s waist. His head’s turned down until Sam tips his chin up and then there’s his brother: tired worry around his eyes, his mouth an unsure slant. Sam drags knuckles along his jaw and smiles at him, trying to make it easy. “We’re okay now,” he says, and Dean’s eyes close, and Sam takes the opportunity and leans down, and kisses him.

Jolt in his stomach. That mouth, familiar after all these years, even if the last year was hard. Even if they haven’t touched like this, not really, since the hospital. Dean’s soft, unsure for some reason, but Sam’s not. After the promise Dean made to him, back at the church, he’s not going to be unsure ever again. He frames Dean’s jaw in one hand and kisses him deeper and Dean responds slowly, the worry or anxiety or whatever it is uncurling, his hand sliding warm under Sam’s shirts, his mouth opening, his breath a sigh. “Sammy,” he murmurs, against Sam’s lips, and Sam smiles, holds his head, thinks _yes_.

Dean’s eyes are heavy, when Sam pulls back, searching Sam’s. He looks exactly like Sam could always want him to look—red mouth, cheeks flushed. Ready. It’s not just them, though. “Let’s see how Cas is doing, huh?” Sam says, generous, and Dean’s eyelashes sweep in a slow blink and even that, god, is enough to send a rush down to Sam’s dick. “Yeah,” Dean says, raw, and has to clear his throat, and Sam grins at him and picks up the half-assed load of clothes and doesn’t think they’ll be worn, not for a while.

Cas is drying off when they get back to the shower room, scrubbing his face, standing naked among the ivory tile. He picks his head up from the towel when he hears them and blinks, pink-faced and damp, his body whole, tanned and compact and long-legged. Lovely, Sam thinks, anticipation building in his belly. Cas lets the towel fall to one side, unselfconscious, and Sam blinks. “Holy crap, dude,” Dean says, “like three weeks as a human and you’re already joining a biker gang?”

A frown before Cas looks down, and touches the tattoos on his ribs like he forgot them. “Oh, right,” he says, like this is nothing. “This was—protection. My brothers were chasing me and it seemed prudent to go dark before I had to kill more of them.” Dean glances at Sam and Sam bites his lip, shakes his head. Cas is still frowning when he looks up. “I don’t know what a gang has to do with it.”

“I know you don’t,” Dean says, quiet, and then, “C'mere.”

Soft, easy. Dean holds his hand out and Sam gets a weird frisson in his spine—the times they’ve done this before. Castiel, angel, in his trenchcoat like armor, with his otherworldly eyes and his strength and his sense always of a universe inside—stepping close, drawn in to Sam’s brother like a wasp to a raging fire. Human, now, naked and frail, and he doesn’t have a chance. He takes Dean’s hand and gets reeled in close, Dean’s affection easy even if it’s not simple, and Dean says, “God, we were worried about you, man,” and Cas blinks and looks down and says, sort of rough, “I—was worried, about me, too,” and Dean shakes his head and tips up Cas’s chin and kisses him, the gentleness in it clear from across the room, and Sam’s stomach flips over and he breathes out and thinks, okay. They’ll play it this way.

First time they ever slept with Cas it was strange—Sam was uncertain, Dean was angry. Cas had no idea what to do with either of them. He’s come in and out of their lives since then and it never got easier, really, although they got used to it. Sam always had the sense that Cas was watching, a little apart. It was obvious that he was in love with Dean and that he had affection for Sam, and Sam was—okay with that, came to love that about him, too. Even an angel couldn’t resist Sam’s brother. Sam got it more than anyone else ever would. Still—he was always an angel, no matter that he was warm flesh and a soft too-generous mouth and that he’d learned to suck dick almost as well as Dean could, and whenever he rose from a motel bed in moonlight, Dean sleeping warm against Sam’s chest, Sam looked at Cas’s bare skin and thought, he was never naked with them. Not really.

Now—

In Dean’s bedroom it’s shocking, how much Cas needs them. Uncalloused, raw, he grips at Dean’s face, his shoulders, reaches for Sam’s hand when Sam touches his chest and clutches at it hard enough that Sam’s bones grind. “I want,” he starts, breathless, but doesn’t seem to know how to continue, how to say. Sam kisses the back of his knuckles and looks at Dean, undressed now too and climbing up next to Cas on the too-soft mattress. He raises his eyebrows and Dean nods, frowning a little.

Dean drags a hand up Cas’s belly, hides the tattoos, kisses his jaw. Moves in, soft, says, “Hey, man. Relax, okay? Me and Sammy are gonna take care of you, right? Like we always do.”

“Always,” Cas repeats, turning in toward Dean’s body, and Sam takes the opportunity to half-strip, to crawl in behind, pressing up against Cas’s warmth. He feels—softer. Sam’s fingers dig into his hip and he thinks, abruptly, that he might leave a bruise, and Cas has been untouchable for uncountable years and that’s so insane-making that Sam buries his mouth against the back of Cas’s shoulder, smooth and tanned-brown and the faintest taste of salt, trying not to think about what they could do. How they could hurt him, if they wanted to. How much he could’ve been hurt, this last little while, and how maybe he was.

A flinchy gasp—"Yeah, there we go,“ Dean’s saying, with his voice that too-familiar almost-porny tilt—and Sam reaches and finds Dean already jerking Cas off, a smooth fondling pump that’s clearly already almost more than Cas can handle. Sam scrapes his teeth along Cas’s shoulder and reaches down, feels his balls, full and always a little bigger than Sam expects. "Yeah,” Dean says, “is that what you need? Cas. C'mon, tell me.”

Jesus, Dean’s voice. Cas shudders, one knee pulling forward. “Kiss me again,” he half-whispers, and Dean groans and does, and it’s wet, sloppy. Sam’s mouth waters and he kisses the back of Cas’s neck, under his ear—grips his thigh and moves him, pushes him forward so he’s half-sprawled over Dean’s body—and Dean rolls with it, gathering Cas in closer, gripping his ass, pulling him in. “Oh,” Cas says, at the full-body contact, and Sam says, “Yeah, Cas—go on, make it feel good,” getting up on his knees so he can see.

He reaches between Cas’s legs, touches his balls again, traces along the clean light hair in his taint, touches his asshole. Cas groans, surging against Dean, and Dean laughs a little, gripping Cas’s hips, spreading his legs wider with his knees. “Yeah, buddy, come on—been a long time, right?” Sam sticks his thumb in his mouth to wet it, brings it back to Cas’s hole, hot, snugged tight—trying not to actually listen to Dean, so he doesn’t just pull his dick out of his boxers and jerk off over Cas’s ass. It’s hard to ignore, though: “When’s the last time you fucked anything? Was it Purgatory? Remember, by the river?”

“Of course I remember the river,” Cas says, shuddery, but lifts up suddenly, his knees spreading around Dean’s hips and his ass pushing back against Sam’s hand, his shoulders tight and hunched. “Please, I can't—I feel—Sam—”

Sam comes up behind him, wraps his arms around Cas’s ribs. “Too much?” he says, and reaches down—god, yeah. Painfully hard, leaking wet already when they’ve only gone for a few minutes, a smear shining on Dean’s belly. Dean pets his thighs, his eyes tight at the corners. Sam squeezes, soft, and Cas’s face turns away, his back flinching against Sam’s chest. “God. Okay—come on, buddy, it’s okay. Just let it go, all right?”

“Yeah, Cas,” Dean says, sitting up. He kisses Cas’s chest, soft, his belly warm and soft against Sam’s knuckles. “Let us see, huh? Damn, you’re hot like this—isn’t he, Sammy?”

Sam jerks Cas’s dick instead of answering, pressing his lips to Cas’s throat. He can feel the race of his pulse, there, the hammering anxious need, and Dean whispers something—Sam can’t hear it—and then Cas groans low and hurt and he’s flexing, in Sam’s hand, spilling heat all over Dean’s stomach and chest, jerking, giving up more maybe than he’s ever given.

“There,” Dean says, warm, and Sam’s dick flexes in his boxers, full, wanting. “Takes the edge off, right?”

“I think there may only be edge,” Cas says, after a second, his voice more normal even if his breath’s still heavy, and Sam snorts, squeezes his dick. Still thick, even with Sam’s hand smeared and slick. Cas’s fingers brush the back of his hand and he turns his head, his mouth a strange tilt. “I didn’t know if…”

Dean frowns, not understanding, but Sam gets it instantly. “We want you here,” he says. He squeezes around Cas’s ribs, soft. “Not just for this. Angel or not. Got it?”

Castiel looks in his eyes, searching, and then smiles, small. Sam’s stomach flips. “Okay,” he says, and turns to look down at Dean, who’s smiling too. “If you’ll have me.”

“If he’ll have us, he says,” Dean says, rolling his eyes. “Like I’m not gonna get my mouth on that hot-ass tattoo here in the next five minutes.”

Cas tilts his head, and Sam laughs. He puts away the strangeness. Cas is here, and safe, and that can’t be anything but good. It’ll be good to get to show him how humans actually do things. Any weirdness can wait for another day.

**Author's Note:**

> [posted here on my tumblr if you'd like to reblog](https://zmediaoutlet.tumblr.com/post/643598400151011328/in-support-of-texas-relief-cestlestial-beings) \-- reblogs help more people see the relief campaign, so it's appreciated if you have a tumblr.
> 
> Would appreciate any thoughts you have.


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